Hormuz Tanker Traffic Slumps as Saudi Arabia Scrambles for New Oil Routes

Only four commodity vessels were detected to have moved inbound or out of the Strait of Hormuz on Thursday, shipping data showed early on Friday, while oil shipping options out of the Middle East became fewer with the closure of the Saudi pipeline to the Red Sea port of Yanbu. Three vessels moved into the Persian Gulf, and one exited the Strait on Thursday, down from the 10-day average of as many as 16 ships daily transiting the chokepoint, according to preliminary data from Kpler cited by Reuters. The tracking excludes any movements of ships that…